Depending on who you are, the thought of having to trawl through your last five years of social media postings could be a non-issue. Then again, it might fill your heart with dread.
Now, imagine voluntarily handing over those accounts to a stranger working for US border control.
The soccer World Cup takes place in North America next summer and holiday plans are being made around this time of year, so that’s exactly what hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world are contemplating right now.
An executive order signed by US president Donald Trump in January 2025 seeks to tighten up the screening process around the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA).
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This waiver programme allows tourists and business travellers from 42 countries to enter the US for 90 days without needing a visa. Ireland is one of those countries.
The order followed an announcement which indicated that the social media accounts of people applying for student visas, or H-1B visas for skilled workers, would also be examined for potential security threats. Applicants were asked to make private profiles available to public view.
Until now, the ESTA process has been fairly quick and required minimal disclosures from applicants. Beyond listing the names of parents, a current email address and any criminal record, there was little more required from an applicant – with no interview at an embassy or consulate needed.
What is now being proposed goes well beyond that.
In addition to the five years of social media activity being listed, a notice published by the US authorities now also proposes that the names of family members and the phone numbers they have used over the past five years be submitted, along with an applicant’s biometric information including fingerprints, DNA and iris readings.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has branded the new plan “unworkable” and says it will lead to “logjams”.
The US State Department says a US visa is a “privilege, not a right”, adding that it is committed to “upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety”.
With the plan awaiting a final sign-off from the US Department of Homeland Security early in the new year, digital rights groups have sounded alarm bells.
“Fundamentally, you have to assume this is about identifying people who have been saying nasty things about Trump and his cronies – simple as that,” says TJ McIntyre, associate professor in the Sutherland School of Law at University College Dublin.
“It’s a bit misleading to just focus on social media handles. At the same time, they are demanding you provide a lot of other details, [such as] email addresses over the last 10 years – grabbing details of the IP address that you used. It provides more information that can be run through their databases.”
McIntyre says the idea that this is simply unworkable may be misplaced. He points to advancements with AI that will enable US officials to run large amounts of basic data through analytical tools and get quick answers.
“You can do a lot with this sort of info in an automated way that doesn’t use a lot of resources,” he says. “For example, you can put a social media handle into an AI tool and ask it for sentiment analysis, asking if this person is hostile to the president. It is an inaccurate and error-prone process but they don’t care.”
The potential inaccuracy of such an approach should worry more than the people applying for entry, says McIntyre. People who share similar names or social media handles could also inadvertently find themselves drawn into the process.
Antoin Ó Lachtnain of Digital Rights Ireland, a data protection advocacy group, says the proposed requirement that applicants switch their social media profiles from private to public raises as many questions as answers.
“If you have your social media set to private, will this be held against you?” he asks.
“The US almost certainly has the legal right to make whatever enquiries it wants about visitors to the United States, including asking for access to all their Facebook posting data, in the name of protecting its borders.
“That said, it will seem very intrusive. This requirement will surely tarnish America’s reputation as a welcoming country to visit for leisure, business and family reasons.”
Ó Lachtnain questions the level of data protection in the US – and whether any information gathered through such a process would be held and later used against individuals.
“Visitors are going to ask themselves, ‘will my data be retained and perhaps later revealed?’. And will an AI bot trawl up some innocent remark and hold it against them as part of an automated process?
“Many travellers will be aware that they won’t have the protection of data-protection law in the US as they might have in Europe or elsewhere.”
Dublin-based solicitor Simon McGarr notes the collection and transfer of EU citizens’ data to the US has been a “hot topic” for more than a decade.
Cases taken by Austrian digital rights campaigner Max Schrems ultimately led to the current EU-US data privacy framework. However, McGarr questions whether this is functioning the way it should.
“We have a transatlantic data-transfer agreement that requires there is an independent entity available for EU citizens to complain to,” he says.
“That only works if there is an independent body . . . the body that was set up had a number of members fired by the Trump administration. Those places haven’t been filled and it doesn’t currently have a quorum to function.”
McGarr says it is a matter for the European Commission to assess whether the framework is still operational, but it “moves far too slowly”.
On a personal level, many people may feel conflicted about travelling to the US, says McGarr. He indicates they are right to feel this way. .
“The risk is if they present themselves and are declined entry – that is recorded permanently and will be a matter of record long after the Trump administration is gone,” he says. “People simply have to weigh up the pros and cons for themselves.”
There are signs that inbound international tourism to the US has fallen sharply throughout 2025 as the White House has tightened up its entry requirements.
The World Travel & Tourism Council said earlier this year that out of 184 countries it had analysed, the US is the only one to have recorded a drop in international visitor spending.
Irish visitor numbers to the US plunged early in the year before picking up in the summer months.
TJ McIntyre recommends a similarly cautious approach by those thinking of travelling soon.
“I would check and see if your travel insurance covers the risk of being turned back at the US border,” he says. ”Even if they are only trying to make an example of people, there is a genuine risk that you might be the unlucky one.
“If it were me, given my publicly expressed views on Trump, I possibly wouldn’t buy the Disney World tickets until I was already in the country.”
